Lima City Council takes the next step in making some administrative changes proposed by Mayor Sharetta Smith.
The mayor gave further details on her plan to change the Department of Community Development to the Department of Housing and Neighborhoods, plus create a deputy director position for that department. The mayor also wants to create a new position to handle communications for the city and another one to oversee workforce and small business development. Smith says during the pandemic the city saw how important small businesses are to the community and she wants to have a person to assist owners to start up, grow, or develop their business.
“Many of our small business owners, they take huge risks to open those businesses,” adds Smith. “They forgo health care, they forgo savings, they forgo retirements and get up every day to provide those products and services. So, the city should take a lead role in offering that support to them.”
Besides the new three positions on the agenda, another position could be created to help the city work smarter and more efficiently.
“This new position, the Project, Performance, and Compliance Manager, looks at what did we promised that we were going to do with this project, are we meeting those goals, and how well are we meeting those goals. As well as, if this project is going to change down the scope, who is the person doing compliance for the administration to be able to give us a heads up that something could go wrong. So, it’s fiscal responsibility, but it’s also delivering on those metrics that we said we would deliver on,” says Smith.
It was decided that these positions would be mayoral appointments versus going throughout the Civil Service Board. So, the job responsibilities of each of the positions can be adjusted to reflect the changing needs of the city. Council moved to write up legislation to create these positions and departments and could vote to approve them at their next meeting.
